A Peek into our Family: Merry Christmas...Happy New Year...and, holy cow we're home

As you know by now from my previous post, we drove to Michigan for Christmas this year. We spent the first part in Lambertville with the Lennex's and then traveled to Grand Rapids for the remainder of our trip. Pre-Christmas Day was just great. We spent lots of time with family, Olivia got to have 100% attention on her day after day from her aunties and Minnie and it was really fun. Christmas Day started to go south when I woke up feeling not-so-good. As soon as I noticed the not-so-good symptoms, I mega-dosed myself on Vitamin C thanks to my sisters awesome juicer and about 45 oranges and started taking some homeopathics. My holistic efforts were no match for the virus from hell though and by Christmas Day night when my mom and my sisters and I were sitting in the theater watching Les Mis (*sidenote, arguably one of THE best movies I've ever seen), I developed a fever, chills and a headache that made me want to crawl into a black hole and never come out. Things went downhill from there, I spent the entire next day in bed, barely able to function enough to nurse Hailey. Thankfully, I have a hubby who is the best in times of illness and he took great care of me and my entire family stepped in to help with the girls. We had planned to go to GR on the 27th and by that morning I was still feeling really lousy but we decided to head north anyway. By the evening of the 27th I was starting to feel better and by the following morning, all that remained of the virus from hell was a cough. THAT morning however, Matt woke up with the not-so-good feeling and we began to repeat what I had been through three days earlier. Couple that with the fact that Baby Hailey developed a fever by Friday evening and things were going in a southernly direction very, very quickly. Long story short, we planned to leave as soon as Matt realized he was sick as we did not want to further infect our family with this illness but once Baby H got a fever, we had to put our plans on hold. Anyone who has been around Baby H for any amount of time knows that she's just about the happiest, most laid back baby on the planet. Smiles are usually SO easy to come by and yet, Baby Hailey with a fever was just about the saddest site to ever see. She did not smile, she did not coo, she did not do anything except look at us with her big blue SAD eyes, glassy from the fever like "WHY CAN YOU NOT MAKE ME FEEL BETTER?" It was torture.

The upside of Hailey getting sick was it forced us to stay which was awesome for Olivia because she got to spend more time with her cousins whom she adores. I was feeling almost like myself and Matt was able to get some rest to start to feel better himself. As luck would have it, Olivia woke up the following day from her nap (we're on Saturday now in case you're not following) with a high fever. I started dosing her with the same stuff I had taken immediately. She progressed into gloominess and lethargy as the day went on and we decided that on Sunday we would have to try and leave. The day was not going well with both of the kiddos feeling lousy and Matt functioning around 30% since he was also still unwell, so we ended up deciding to drive through the night in hopes that our feverish kiddos would sleep. It worked. We left Grand Rapids at about 8:00 EST and arrived in KC around 5:30am CST. We did not hear a PEEP from either girl until about 3am at which point, Olivia woke up and exclaimed that she was no longer sick (and she was right...her fever broke and that was the last we saw of the virus from hell in her!) and Hailey needed to nurse and then fell right back asleep. Monday and Tuesday were an adjustment as we all were sleep deprived and weak having been sick and through all the hectic travels, but we were so glad to just be home, in our own beds.

What a whirlwind. For a family who hardly ever gets sick (maybe once every other year for Matt and I), this was some luck but alas, it happened.

ANYWAY, we had tons of fun and are SO grateful for the time we had to spend with family this year so here are the highlights of our winter trip home:

Christmas at our house prior to heading to Michigan